It just occured to me that Peter Petigrew did not seem to be terribly good at Occulmency or Legilimency so how did he fool Dumbledore and co into believing he has on their side?
I don't know if this has been covered elsewhere. If so sorry!
I think it was a matter of everybody else believing that he wasn't capable of betraying them. They thought he was not a great wizard and wouldn't be able to pull of something like that.
This thread belongs in Notable Magical Names, as it is discussing a character as himself, and not as how he will affect future books.
*POOF* :wizard:
Sunny_Elf
Leaky Lounge Moderator
Again Dumbledors tragic flaw he trusts to much, he trusted pettigrew because he was james and lilies freind
Peter was cunning enough to appear to be a weak and talentless individual, but in reality he managed to fool his friends and DD, and proved himself to be a cleverer wizard (in terms of the depth of his cunning) than anyone had given him credit for.
its cunning disguised as the honest and simple you have to watch out for.
but what i want to know is how did voldiemort get his claws into perrigrew in the first place? a weak link in the marauders defences? its just a shame that peter turned out more cunning then he looked.
But it could have been a matter of that Wormtail feared for his life and so joined Voldy to protect it.
I wonder about that, too. I think that LV would have played on Peter's "vulnerability" as the supposed weak link in the Marauders - and offered him more than he felt he was getting from his friends. I think that Peter always resented his talented and intelligent friends - Minerva pointed out in PoA that Peter was never in Sirius and James's league, "talent-wise" (paraphrasing, as I don't have my books handy) and Remus would certainly have been no slouch at school. LV must have convinced Peter that siding with him was much better than tagging along on the coat-tails of the other three. Of course, that wasn't how his friends saw him, but Peter must have believed what LV told him, and his selfish little heart must have closed itself off to his conscience.
I wonder about that, too. I think that LV would have played on Peter's "vulnerability" as the supposed weak link in the Marauders - and offered him more than he felt he was getting from his friends. I think that Peter always resented his talented and intelligent friends - Minerva pointed out in PoA that Peter was never in Sirius and James's league, "talent-wise" (paraphrasing, as I don't have my books handy) and Remus would certainly have been no slouch at school. LV must have convinced Peter that siding with him was much better than tagging along on the coat-tails of the other three. Of course, that wasn't how his friends saw him, but Peter must have believed what LV told him, and his selfish little heart must have closed itself off to his conscience.
Peter was obviously the least talented of the four friends but perhaps more ambitious than any of them. Nobody really thought about his needs until...Voldie contacted him and presented himself as "the strongest bully on the playground". I don't think that Peter wanted to betray James and Lily, though. It must have been simply the matter of being Voldemort's spy inside the Order, but after some time there was no return from the DE. Especially after the prophecy, Wormtail became an important link to the Potters and , by this time, he knew that not satisfying Voldemort meant death. Being a coward without any strong moral fibre , he also added the treason to his many misdeeds.
but what i want to know is how did voldiemort get his claws into perrigrew in the first place?
Did he? Or did Peter Pettigrew go to Voldemort?
Suddenly Peter's friends weren't the big kids in the playground anymore. I can imagine him thinking they suddenly seemed to be foolish boys playing at being soldiers. So he would have felt sure they were going to die, and take him along with them (perhaps he sort of got bounced into the Order because he didn't want them to think he was a coward). If there's a massive, fire-breathing dragon in your vicinity and you can't run or hide, the safest place to be is right behind it. You might not get burned then.
We do have an example of a wizard who is not so great at most spells, but very good at one... Lockhart. He couldn't do anything well except the Obliviate spell. Are we sure that Peter is not good at Occlumency/ Legilimens? Maybe that is his talent.
Or, being friends, maybe no one ever tried to check to see if he was lying or not. They just trusted him.
Peter reminds me of the type of person who is only concerned for himself and will align himself with whoever he thinks can protect him. I always see Snape as someone who's looking out for himself, so I find it interesting that they are together at the beginning of HBP, especially since Peter was very into cheering on James and Sirius.
I think Voldy brought out his hidden talents. Since Wormtail never thought he was ever any good, he always stayed in ths shadows. It is the perfect place for a traitor: no one notices you, not even your best friends.
I think Peter thought he had some ability, but he was always in the shadow of James and Sirius - and more than likely, Remus too - in terms of that ability, so there was never much opportunity to "prove" himself. When LV came along, that opportunity presented itself.
Peter is often presented as a rather dense creature, who hangs out with much more brightier boys because they pity him...perhaps we underestimate him as a wizard. For instance we haven't heard about anybody in Harry's year becoming an animagus, with the help of friends or otherwise. Peter did succeed in this and it might be significant. He wasn't such an average student. He also knows the fine art of persuasion very well - after all he's weaseled out of a very tight corner in the PoA book only talking to Harry and the others. He certainly knows how to pull strings.
That was Peter's strength. He knew how to flatter, lie low and weasel his way out of situations. Peter in that Pensieve memory in OotP almost exaggeratedly showed admiration for James tossing around that Snitch. Sirius told James to put away the Snitch before Peter wet himself.
A more careful observer of Peter's behaviour would have been on the alert. He is sort of passive aggressive, and I doubt that he liked the Marauders so much he overlooked the insults they sent his way.
Yeah Peter is the ultimate actor. In that memory he plays to James ego. Also in the Shack he talks to Harry about his father and how he would have shown mercy which agains plays to Harry's desire to know more about his father.
I totally agree with what other posters have said already. Wormtail is an extremely cunning, persuasive weasel that can talk his way out of certain things and can always seem the last person you'd expect to do something. He is a very interesting character in a way. Even though we're constantly hearing some people say that he isn't the most brilliant and all that he always seems to be intrusted with important tasks. For example, he was the Potter's secret keeper, now I know that he was only made secret keeper in order to protect the Potters even more because he wouldn't seem the type of person LV would go after. But lets pressume that wormtail had never turned spy, why would someone trust such a weakling? LV would by some means go after wormtail at some point, he was the Potter's friend. It would seems obvious that he would black-mail all their friends to get to them.Also, as another poster pointed out, wormtail became an animagus in his 5th year. Even though he was helped some what by James and Sirius. If he was so useless and powerless and not "in the same league as James and Sirius" I doubt, even with his friends help, that he would've been able to became an animagi.
Then there's the case that wormtail took care and resurrected LV. Strange that such a useless wizard that isn't up to scratch could preform such a spell. Also, he killed Cedric as we know the AK curse has to have some power to back it up. Personally, wormtail is underestimated by every one for his lack of courage and self-esteem. Even he underestimates himself.
Peter was also a member of the Order, I think it demanded more than a little courage to be in this organization. Remeber Slughorn comment? He said that he didn't fancy the mortality rate. Obviously the members weren't killed so often at first, but they all had to take a sudden death into account. Perhaps it was too much for Pettigrew. There's also one argument. Peter liked the company of powerful wizards but he also wanted to be appreciated by them Lets face it; even as a member of the Order, Peter knew he would never have been able to make himself indispensable to Dumbledore. And in Voldemort he may have believed he had found himself a leader who could offer him just about everything he had ever wanted. And no lack of little weaknesses for him to exploit, either. A lot of space to sprawl and nobody to criticize or laugh at you.
I think Peter in both a coward and cunning. Coward that he chose what is easy by joining with Voldy. But cunning aswell as he fooled all his old friends into thinking he was loyal to them.
I think that Peter liked to bask in the reflection of others' exploits, because their intelligence and talent would make him seem so much more than he was. A wizard of average ability, like Peter, wouldn't have had the chance to shine normally, even though he might have been able to pass exams in his schooldays and get through his classes. Since he needed every ounce of help he could get from Sirius and James to master the Animagus transformation, he couldn't have hoped to keep up with them in any other respect, and that must have rankled.
As a member of the Order, he would probably have been a journeyman - not a particularly outstanding wizard in any respect, just one who seemed to be determined to fight LV like all the rest. When LV came along and offered him whatever it was, Peter jumped at the chance to step out of the shadows at long last.
Perhaps Wormtail was a basically lazy person who got out of a lot by pretending he didn't have the talent. He'd shower James' ego with false, exaggerated admiration, egging him on to fight with the likes of Snape so he could enjoy the entertainment. When the other marauders got him to become an animagus it was no accident that the shape which chose him was a rat.
Because with his pretended ignorance and stupidity he never had to take responsibility for whatever choices the marauders made. He could look on the sidelines, without any obvious complicity. No wonder he got the life of Riley as Scabbers, sleeping around at the Burrow and at Hogwarts, apparently inert and inoffensive. Unfortunately for him, Sirius was on his heel and so Wormtail's cozy life as Scabbers had to come to an end.
The insults Sirius sent his way might well have rankled so maybe LV didn't have to do much to persuade Wormtail to turn tail. But LV treats Wormtail just as shabbily, if more so.
The bit that is intriguing is: What is Wormtail doing, holed up with Severus Snape at Spinners End?
After Molly Weasley's encounter with the boggart, Lupin told her "we're much better off then we were last time ... last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one". At the time of Pettigrew's defection, Voldemort was near the hight of his power and it would appear, to most of the wizarding world, that he was going to win. I don't think that Pettigrew would have needed any more reason than that.
The reason that Lupin was not told about the last minute change of Secret Keepers, was that Sirius (and possibly James) suspected him of being the spy. Sometimes a persons mind can be so firmly locked on one possibility, that he just dosen't see any other.
The bit that is intriguing is: What is Wormtail doing, holed up with Severus Snape at Spinners End?
I can imagine Voldemort giving to them both (Severus and Peter) the same task: keep an eye on him, I trust you more than him, perhaps he's up to something funny, I would like to hear/read your reports daily/weekly...don't disappoint me!
They suspected each other, Professor Nigellus, and they had some good reasons: Sirus's whole family were dark wizards so it wouldn't be so strange if he changed side. On the other hand, the werewolves are supposed to be highly dangerous and untrustworthy creatures per se, so Lupin could have also betrayed his friends with no reason at all. Only Peter was percieved as apparently innocuous, exaclty because he has created himself a perfect disguise of being a mediocre and average wizard, who wouldn't be tempted by Voldie, because Voldie prefers more gifted ones.
I totally agree with this point! That was the reason he became secret keeper, wasn't it?
I think everyone felt he just didn't have it in him and that he wouldn't have been sought out by Voldemort because he wouldn't have been much use! Oh, how sadly wrong they all were!
I agree with most of what has been said. I think that Peter started hanging out with James, Sirius and Remus thinking that they were cool and genuinely looking up to them. then, obviously, he was pushed into the shadows, and did what was expected of him...he became and animagus, joined the order, hung out with the maurauders, but i don't think his heart was in a lot of it. so, when something different came along (ie voldemort) peter wanted to do something unexpected. he wanted to prove that he was his own person. and yes, i think he was scared. and while i do think wormtail is powerful (he AK'ed Cedric and revived Voldemort, this took power) and not very nice (same examples), i don't think he is pure evil like a lot of DE's are. I think he sometimes regrets what he has done, and while he feels safer with voldemort, i don't think he likes voldemort all that much...
i almost feel sorry for him
almost
Peter certainly did something far-reaching, terrible and totally unexpected, and if that was his way of "proving" himself, then he has to somehow prove that he is worthy of redemption as well. If he has a conscience, then it has been buried for many years, unless it haunts him at night when he tries to sleep. He's certainly scared of LV, and he's also a coward, so whatever he chooses to do in book seven, it'll need to be something selfless, because he's never done anything for anyone unless it suited his own purposes.
Came across this idea elsewhere:
What if one of those rare exceptions was Peter?
No one would suspect him as being the spy because of his parentage; it would be akin to a Jewish person joining the Nazis. It sheds some light on why Sirius, James and especially Lily would consider him for Secret Keeper and why Sirius and Lupin were so quick to forgive each other for thinking the other was the spy - their mutual suspicion may not have been due to some rift in their friendship but just a simple process of elimination. It also shows why the other Death Eaters treat Peter like vermin even though he's an effective agent who brought their dear leader back to corporeal life.
All Peter would have to do is lie low and not draw attention to himself in a way that would make the others think twice about ruling him out as the spy.
Sneaky little bugger.
That is a very interesting theory Kylenn! I have never seen the quote you gave. Do you know where exactly it is from? Your theory does seem to explain a lot. Good for you.
Mrs.Whatsit, thanks! But the credit should go to a gal at another site who wrote up this theory at length. I just carted it over.
Here's a http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80 to the quote from Jo's own site.
Kylenn that's well spotted. Jo's comment does make you really think who could it be. I suppose there a chance it could be Wormtail, but I just think he has at least one magical parent.
I find Pettigrew the most reprehensible character in the entire series. Without him not only would James and Lily be alive but he alone brought LV back to life. In our world I could only compare him with a pervert who stalks children. Death is too good for him. He needs to be eaten alive by spiders or something like that.
My main curiousity about Peter is how he ended up in the Weasly household. Quite a coincidence that he lives with a family with a boy that become Harry's best friend. Any Imperious Curses going on here, I wonder??
Yeah, that is quite a coincidence...one would think that he would have found a non magical family, to avoid exposure or suspiscion.
Above all else, Peter Pettigrew looks out for himself. His stock in trade has always been whom and what he knows--not his magical abilities. I think it was a fortunate coincidence that brought him to the Weasleys initially, but with Arthur in the Ministry and the Order, it was not coincidence that kept him there. One has to return to Voldemort bearing gifts, if one expects to live. The fact that Harry was close to the Weasleys was just the kind of information that Voldemort would use in his plans. Just how close is information unique to Pettigrew as Scabbers.
Add to this the fact that, for many years, everyone thought that Voldemort had died--well, Harry was just the icing on the cake then. Once he had been exposed, there was no choice--he had to return.
Scabbers would not have lasted long in a Muggle family. Rats are not the preferred pet, and there are way too many cats around... :wink:
PP :wizard:
I always thought he was with a wizarding family because he wanted to keep tabs on what was going on in the wizarding world. Not like a daily prophet is likely just to blow down the street. AND it was after Sirius escaped (and it was in all the papers) that Scabbers began to look bad, lose fur, etc. I'm sure he also wanted to make sure if there were any whisperings about his activites or the rise of LV he could be on top of it.
I tried to post this yesterday, but kept being blocked. So I'll post what I remember.
Young Peter Pettigrew was not evil. I believe that he was an average wizard, friends with and rooming with the powerful James Potter and Sirius Black. In spite of his affliction, Remus is also a very powerful wizard. The boys accepted him as their friend, not their toady. As Sirius said years later in the Shrieking Shack, when Peter had whimpered that LV would have killed him: "Then you should have died. As we would have died for you!" They loved him and helped him succeed in his Animagus transformation. Lupin mourned his "death", just as he mourned the loss of James and Lily and the "treachery" of Sirilus.
So what happened? One fan fiction writer suggests that his father may have died in his fourth or fifth year at the school. This would leave him feeling responsible for his mother and any possible siblings. Maybe there was a real or implied threat to their lives by LV. This does happen to Draco in HBP. And someone wondered why he didn't even let his mother know he was alive. No father was mentioned. PoA
Thanks, B.Anne. There are many ways to interpret Peter's character and actions; we just haven't got enough evidence to know yet. However, I'm glad to hear from someone else who thinks that Peter may have been a pretty decent and likeable kid, a real friend to James, Sirius, and Remus, rather than their charity project. He wasn't as skilled as his friends, but perhaps he had other qualities that they appreciated. In PoA, Sirius claims that he was always a sneaky what's-in-it-for-me type, but this is hind-sight from a man who's been brooding about Peter's treachery for twelve years, and who isn't inclined to be objective in matters he feels strongly about. Notice that we hear next to nothing about Peter's character from Remus, who might have been level-headed enough to remember, and mourn the loss of, the boy who generously shared his goodies from home, was a whiz at finding his way around the shifting passageways of Hogwarts, told good jokes, and could do corking impersonations (or whatever Peter was good at).
Ms. Rowling has described Peter as a person who out of cowardice will stand in the shadow of the biggest bully. I'm inclined, therefore, to think that fear, rather than a desire for acclaim or power, was Peter's primary motivation in joining Voldemort. I had thought at one time that perhaps Voldemort got to him not by threatening Peter himself, but his mother. However, in PoA he protests, "You don't understand! He would have killed me!" (Not an exact quote). I think that if his mother had been threatened, he would have been quick to point this out as an excuse. Still, I keep remembering something said by Richard Wurmbrandt, who survived imprisonment and torture during WWII. He says in one of his essays that there were many traitors who defected out of fear, who might have remained decent and honorable people, with useful skills for good, if they had lived in different circumstances. Maybe Peter was that sort of person. It doesn't justify what he did. But I don't think his treachery neccessarily means that there was never anything good in him.
In fact, I think we've had a clue that there is, indeed, still some good in Peter, however deeply buried. Ms. Rowling has all but told us that Peter will do something to help Harry before the end. It could be that Peter will help Harry unwittingly or unwillingly, but I doubt it. There has been too much emphasis on choice throughout the series. I expect that Peter will help Harry because he chooses to.
So...Sorry to be so long-winded. I wish I were better at saying things concisely. Fortunately for all who are bored to tears by my long posts, I won't have an on-line computer much longer. Anyway, my point, finally, is that maybe Peter didn't have to do a great deal of pretending to convince everyone that he was a good fellow. Maybe he always was, until his fears got the better of him. And no one realized he'd become a traitor, because you typically don't suddenly start questioning the loyalty and motives of old friends. You don't watch them closely and suspiciously. (My bet is that Sirius wouldn't have suspected Remus if Peter hadn't planted some misleading evidence to give him the idea.)
Thanks, Kylenn_Black, for sharing the theory of Peter being muggle-born. I'd never thought of that, and it makes sense.
I've been thinking that Peter's "help" to Harry may be to aid Harry in getting to Nagini as one of the Horcruxes, probably - seeing how close Nagini always is to Voldemort, the last Horcrux to destroy - so that Harry can move on and defeat Voldemort.
Pettigrew is definitely not a Gryffindor. I waffle between him being a Slyterin as he always looks out for himself, and a Hufflepuff. He's not smart enough to be a Ravenclaw and there is nothing brave about him. But if he were a Slyterin, would James, Sirius and Lupin ever have let him hang around in the first place?
An interesting parallel popped into my head as I was reading these posts. Pettigrew and Kreacher. The people around them treated them with similar casual overlooking of feelings and potential. No one would believe either was capable of ANYTHING, much less a betrayal to the dark lord. An interesting correlation between how these two were treated and what they ended up doing.
A thought just popped into my head. PP probably had the weak minded potential all along to turn where he did but didn't until after leaving school.(I think I have the timeline right.) James and Lily defied LV 3 times before Harry's birth. I have always assumed one of those times was before their 7th year. My reasoning for this is him becoming Head Boy seemingly out of nowhere and Lily's change of heart concerning him. With LV gaining more and more power and students standing off against him maybe PP saw LV as the bigger guy. My question is did PP approach LV first or did LV recruit him for the purpose of infiltrating the Order and to get to the Potters? Granted I could be way off base here but this is how I connect the dots.
It is stated somewhere, I don't remember when, maybe POA, that there was spy for a year. I would think, once Voldemort decided who he was going after, the Potters with their end of July baby, he then needed to find somebody close enough to them to help him. Peter would be the obvious choice.
So you definitely think LV approached PP first and that he was easily persuaded to join the other side. LV seems to be very good at strategy if this is the case. What a horrible friend PP is to do such a thing to his closest friends!
I don't know this for certain, but Pettigrew must have been a Gryffindor (in order to hang out with James/Sirius/Lupin), right? His personality sounds much more like a Slytherin to me...will he redeem himself in the end, or did he fool the Sorting Hat as well? Also, doesn't Hagrid say in the first book something like every wizard that went bad was from Slytherin...?
Hagrid did say that, but I'd bet it was an exaggeration on Hagrid's part. I think it would be pretty hard to fool the Sorting Hat, but a person could have Gryffindor bravery and still be a villain. Being a Gryffindor doesn't make you immune to making bad choices, and I think that's what happened to Peter. Personally, I do think he'll redeem himself to a certain extent.
JKR in 2000
So yeah, I think Voldemort found the weak link here. Someone mentioned somewhere when PP became the secret keeper it was like striking gold for LV.
Could If have been that Wormtail was under a hex at first? and then was like, looky here, I get all this power, and everything, I think I'll stay! I dunno know, could that have happened? Cause he wanted the attention?
Well, there is an interesting comment in POA, that Sirius (as the traitor) thought he'd get to be second in command. Of course, it turns out it was Peter but maybe that still holds true that he thought he was going to get something out of the deal. Look where it did get him! :O
I really just think he wouldn't be a hard nut to crack. But then again he was obviously more clever than anyone could have possibly imagined.
I think that Peter flew unger the radar alot through out their school days. He was underestimated due to his lack of skill, or confidence. Actually he is still flying under the radar a little, LV, and Snape think he is a skittish being not very note worthy other then LV has him so scared that he will do anything LV wants him too as long as it keeps him alive. He's not a fighter so you don't see him fighting at all. He will do anything to stay out of the line of fire.
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